Collin Raye Latest to Speak Out About ‘Dumbed Down’ Country Music

Collin Raye recently became the latest country singer to speak out about the country music genre and why he's not happy about its progression. He says talking about the genre and what it has come to these days is something he's very passionate about.

"I’m passionate about it because I love our genre," he told Fox News. "I got into country music not to make a buck. I did it because I love it."

He says that country music has lost the one thing he fell in love with -- the poetry.
“I grew up at a time when Merle Haggard was writing stuff like ‘Mama’s Hungry Eyes,’ ‘Sing Me Back Home’ and Kristofferson was writing ’Sunday Morning Coming Down’ and 'Me and Bobby McGee.’ It was poetry."

The 'Love, Me' singer says country music has been "dumbed down" and that is depressing for him. "I’m really depressed at how it has dumbed down to basically just a one dimensional ‘lets party in the truck, gonna drink some cold beer.”

Unlike some other artists who are speaking out and blaming general artists, Raye says it's more of the record labels who are to blame.

"It’s the 'gatekeepers' ... that we used to have in Nashville which are the label heads who used to decide what was good enough to put out and what was not. And now they have just totally given in to that."

Raye was on Fox News to discuss his new book, 'A Voice Undefeated.' He was approached to write the book on his life after his oldest granddaughter passed away in 2010. The book is primarily about his faith, but there's a little something for country fans, too.